“We let customers easily extend their enterprise by offering a cross-platform, near ‘zero touch,’ future proof mobile lifecycle,” Parekh said. The company most recently had its GO!Enterprise technologies on display at last month’s CTIA Super Mobility Week in Las Vegas.

To deliver these mobility benefits, GO!Enterprise intelligently brings together three main components:

GO!AppZone Studio is Globo’s MADP mobile application development platform that brings together a code-free IDE with cloud-based services for app testing and deployment.

GO!Enterprise Workspace, a secure managed cross-platform container that works on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry phones and tablets.

GO!Enterprise Server is the intelligent backend middleware server. This offers seamless and secure integration with a number of high-value, backend data, apps and other services

IDN speaks with Globo’s Parekh about the architecture and benefits of each.

GO!AppZone Studio. More than a front-end IDE, GO!AppZone Studio was designed to offer developers a “unified platform to speed up the entire mobile apps lifecycle,” Parekh said. Globo’s approach to a mobile lifecycle aims to deliver several speed and simplicity benefits across dev/test/deploy.

Not the least of these benefits is the code-free approach of the GO!AppZone Studio’s visual IDE. “With GO!AppZone Studio, you can build an app in hours or even minutes. It definitely won’t take you more than a day,” Parekh said.

That’s because in the IDE, devs don’t program code; they create what Globo calls “an application definition file.” This file becomes the GO!App, which is described using Globo’s XML-based cloud application markup language (called IRIS). Devs use IRIS to define their GO!App apps in terms of UI elements, data handling structures, configurations and actions, according to company product descriptions.

Using these files, devs can simply drag and drop pre-defined components on mobile forms; configure the properties; and then define event-based actions that will deliver the desired functionality. “These code-free GO!Apps run in the [GO!Enterprise] Workspace, and that is how we can deliver ‘write-once, run anywhere’ mobile apps,” Parekh told IDN.

Using Globo’s cloud-based service, “developers can test GO!Apps with just one-click using our cloud-based service,” Parekh said. A dev simply selects the emulator(s) needed and the GO!App is loaded to run tests. GO!AppZone Studio also lets devs add custom HTML5, CSS and JavaScript code, as needed, he added. Importantly, this environment can also preview and test GO!Apps that require MBaaS (mobile backend as a service) services, such as secure communications, data sync or integration with data and other apps.

Securing GO!Apps is made equally simple, Parekh added. Devs simply select those forms or components that need to be secured; once marked, admins grant rights before the apps are distributed. Integrating GO!Apps with backend services is done using a collection of Globo pre-built, out-of-the-box connectors built using web services, native database connections, ODBC or RSS.

GO!Enterprise Workspace. When ready to deploy, the GO!App goes into the GO!Enterprise Workspace container. The container works in conjunction with the GO!Enterprise Server to provide the GO!App secure and manageable access to backend services, as well as real-time security for the apps’ operations.

When an app is in use, the container renders GO!Apps using web browsing components (for the UI) and an embedded JavaScript bridge that acts as a proxy for all JavaScript API calls that implement access to native resources (e.g., local data and file storage, GPS receiver, camera, compass etc.), according to Globo’s documentation.

“Our intelligent container is one of the key way we can promise a ‘future-proof architecture,’” Parekh said. For example, when a new version of a mobile OS is released, Globo updates a mobile app to support it. “We worry about all those updates, and we make them available. That way, there is no need for developers or IT to worry or have to make any changes directly to their GO!Apps,” he added.

GO!Enterprise Server is the intelligent backend middleware server that offers seamless and secure integration between the GO!App and a number of high-value mobile backend apps, data, and services such as security and management.

To automate integration and data synchronization, it offers an engine that runs with connectors for popular enterprise databases (MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL), standards-based web services (SOAP, WCF, REST) and even RSS feeds. To assure data sync operations are secure, GO!Enterprise Server has a secure gateway. This also supports secure push notifications and communications with third-party applications, Parekh said.

Admins can uniformly manage apps across Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone devices. Admins also get real-time time monitoring and tracking of policy and security rules to ensure enforcements. Rules and alerts can be set based on app roles, usage, location and other considerations,

Beyond safeguarding apps and users, Globo’s GO!Enterprise Server provides end-to-end encryption to protect data at rest (on the server or the device) or data in motion over the air, Parekh said. It also offers a secure internet gateway, which when installed in the corporate DMZ, delivers further security by acting as a proxy for all connections between GO!Enterrpise and the company’s legacy enterprise systems running on internal networks.

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Today, companies simply want to quickly put their businesses on a strong mobile track, without losing the security, control and compliance they already have. A good mobility vendor should be able to deliver tools that customers can use to design, develop, test, deploy, secure and manage – and do all of that quickly and simply,” Parekh said.

Globo’s GO!Enterprise approach for delivering end-to-end speed and simplicity for mobile projects is capturing the attention of mobility analysts.

“Globo is one of very few vendors . . . [to combine] strong MDM, containerization and MAM features with a proprietary MADP, offering an interesting choice for enterprises looking for a single solution delivering each of these EMM components,” said Richard Absalom, senior analyst for enterprise mobility at Ovum, in a recent report.